Cranberry industry: Colombia will grow from Boyacá
According to local producers, the tropical zone in which Boyacá is located allows producing sugar accumulation throughout the year and producing a better taste product and in the case of its size it can be improved with fertilization, new management and technology.
The region is located in the middle of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, with their respective port infrastructure and land connectivity provided with roads in good condition. On the other hand, its human resource has a vast technical experience from the development of the flower industry. The excellent infrastructure of packing, storage and air transport is also inherited from the flower export.
Óscar Leonel González is a technical assistant in blueberries and a specialist advisor in international trade. He has been working with Boyacá blueberry producers for three years, advising them on the export of fruit to the US and Europe, and organizing them guildly, helping them create the Association of Boyacá Blueberry Producers, where 17 producers supported by the Government participate de Boyacá, which allows them to present projects to the Ministry of Agriculture in terms of obtaining vegetative material and technical assistance. Nationally, they are associated with Asocolblue, which brings together the whole of the blueberry industry in Colombia and whose mission is to be recognized as the producers with the highest growth rate in the fruit sector in Colombia.
We asked Óscar González about what are the comparative advantages of Boyacá over the other regions of Colombia for the cultivation of blueberries.
- Boyacá, it is known that it has spectacular comparative advantages, in terms of soil, water, territorial location, port infrastructure, air, packaging and storage services, etc. but with respect to the nurseries we are in the learning process, that is why it is important that the vegetative material is brought from outside, from the US, from Chile, because it is an excellent vegetative material that has already been working for a long time, we have tested it For a long time, the plant gives us more yield per hectare and can be better adapted. Our nurseries are starting, but they are people who are promoting blueberry cultivation on a small scale. Then they make meetings, they show what the blueberry is, the qualities, the characteristics, where it can be grown, the agroecological zones etc. but they sell 100 plants, 200 plants, 300 plants, and as is known, the blueberry has to be more or less between 7000 and 10.000 plants per hectare, with its anti-bird mesh and its anti-hail mesh, because here it rains a lot, a lot of hail falls, So the crop is very susceptible to all this. These nurseries are making a disclosure, they are making the blueberry known, but the quality of the plant leaves much to be desired. In addition, they are promoting it on a small scale and it must be promoted on a large scale, because in the blueberry we are going between 120 to 350 millions of pesos per hectare, so it is important to take this into account. We are in the process of learning, because we are so far entering. We have been 4 for years with tests of success and error, money has been lost, plants have been thrown away because they do not give the yields, because they do not have the characteristics to produce what they are required to produce, then we are in a stage, or in a learning process.
We also talked with Vanessa Baez, manager of the Glob Berry company, dedicated exclusively to blueberries in Colombia, who ratifies the vision described by Gonzálezscar González and other actors of the emerging Colombian industry.
- Well, there are currently three regions where the issue of blueberry production is concentrated, which are Antioquia, Cundinamarca and Boyacá. In Boyacá we have very ideal conditions for the cultivation of blueberries. We have land, water, weather. In addition, we have people to work, because we have the delicate workforce we need, from the experience of flowers.
In Boyacá we are located in the center of Colombia and this helps us a lot in the logistics issue, both to reach the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, so we have a logistics distribution where we have access facilities for the roadways and also for the of the airlines, those that remain in very good condition, which makes the fruit not suffer any damage.
Boyacá producers have only been producing blueberries in the Biloxi, Legacy and Duke varieties, allowed by the Agricultural Institute of Colombia, ICA, for four years, in an area that reaches around 200 hectares. However, the qualitative conditions of Boyacá position it as the strategic center from where the incipient Colombian blueberry industry can become an important player in the international blueberry market, if it travels along the path of good practices and gathers the experience of others successful countries
Currently in Boyacá, approximately 20 tons per week or 1000 tons per year are being collected, although the region has large tracts of land to implement large blueberry production projects. We are talking about the availability of more than 4000 hectares in the Boyacá region, with more than 70% of the soils with a Ph suitable for blueberry cultivation, in addition to black soil for good root development.
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